It's a rare moment when the BBC Ten O'Clock News has me punching the air with delight. Usually my response is closer to comatose, with a combination of exhaustion and depression. But last night, David Cameron's take on work-life balance (OK, I know it's a terrible phrase, but it serves its purpose) had finally got this crucial issue on to the major news headlines.

I could hardly believe it on Monday night as I listened to Nick Robinson, a political editor who probably imagines that work-life balance is what happens when you reduce your working week to 70 hours. The issue I have spent two years dreaming would reach the political mainstream has finally done so - and thanks goes, unexpectedly, to Cameron.

And today, in the shape of a Guardian/ICM poll, came a strong indication that he may be on to something: the survey showed Cameron four points ahead of Blair thanks to a new wave of support among women for his rebranded party.

I had expected it to be the Labour party that would get the thesis I developed in my book Willing Slaves. But after various meetings with ministers - I remember a particularly depressing No 11 summit - I grew increasingly discouraged. Not only was Gordon Brown deaf to any aspect of the wellbeing agenda or calls for a care ethic; I found much of the Labour party still pledged to its traditions of labour and of identity formed around work.

This idea is in the marrow of the bones of Labour. Its history and its combination of middle-class professionals, networking public relations types and trade unionists all conspire to one end: work. And the injection of women into senior positions has only strengthened this preoccupation. They have brought a welcome new perspective, but it is that of the juggling superwoman whose main concern is the availability of childcare.

I came to the conclusion that Willing Slaves was a cry in the dark - and that that is exactly where it would remain. I lost hope of any chance of public recognition of the value of care: loving, attentive, emotional labour that has no impact on GDP and makes all the difference to the sustainability, vitality and harmony of any society. This is the work that millions of women (and some less work-driven men) are already doing, mostly unnoticed.

Yet all Brown could ever talk about was the need to get women into work in a relentless drive to solve child poverty by getting mums behind checkout tills. He was Dickensian in his approach, a chilly, statistics-wielding, hard taskmaster. All the intentions were in the right place, of course, but where was the heart to see that women were already hard at work raising their children, and that the "ladder" he was offering them to get into paid jobs was often just a trapdoor into cheap, low-paid work and the stress of the circus act required to run a family and hold down a job?

To be fair, the sceptics will point out that Cameron was offering nothing concrete; it was all warm words. I totally agree. But at this point, I'm not fussy: they are all the right warm words. In fact, I'm tempted to think that he or his speechwriter has read Willing Slaves but that would be very self-referential. It could just be synchronicity.

The warm words have got big, crucial issues on to the mainstream agenda, and that is going to have an impact on Brown and the future of the Labour party. We are going to hear a lot more about the value of care and the quality of relationships from all political parties. Cameron has shifted the public debate on significantly, recasting it as being not about economic efficiency but rather about human wellbeing. Now we can begin the really important task of pinning Cameron and Brown down on specifics. The mood music at last sounds right.